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America the Impotent Barrett Kalellis At a fund-raiser last week, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney invoked the metaphor of the tar baby to describe the monumental government boondoggle "Big Dig" project in Boston. Derived from a Southern folklore story from Georgia journalist Joel Chandler Harris' 1881 Uncle Remus collection, the tar baby is a perfect symbol for any sticky problem that becomes large very quickly, and the more you try to fix it, the worse it seems to get. As might have been predicted, some black politicos who do not appreciate literary subtleties immediately claimed that Romney's allusion was inappropriate and somehow racist in nature and demanded an apology. Befitting a spineless creature, Romney followed this ridiculous criticism with a paroxysm of mea culpas. This incident, and the thousands of others that preceded it, is a blaring banner that signals how American has lost its spirit and its self-confidence. It symbolizes a political correctness that has pervaded the culture, stifling the national discourse and balkanizing the country into thousands of groups that monitor and pass judgment on public utterances or policy positions of any sort, making people afraid to speak out. Since the middle of the 1960s, beginning with the civil rights and Vietnam War protests, the rise of radical activism, politically driven media and widespread cultural debasement has steadily eaten away at the core of American national values and our sense of community. Aggrieved minority and other single-issue "rights" groups are constantly jockeying in the media and in the courts with divisive matters that Americans previously agreed upon: school prayer, bilingual education, gay rights, abortion rights, ethnicity and gender preferences, religious displays, and others. Other perpetually outraged groups try to impose socialist nostrums on the country by legislative fiat, if possible: universal health care, remunerations for blacks, "comparable worth" and "living" wage mandates, proportional representation, etc. – all claimed on the basis of "rights" and without regard to taxpayer pockets. This constant activism and public clamor for special rights, the vulgarity of popular culture and the pari passu marginalization of religious instruction has led to the subsequent demonization of those with opposing views. Not only coarsening public discourse, it also has poisoned politics between the major parties to the point where public service has become a sheer lust for power, achieved by figuratively poking your opponent in the eye for his views.
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Edmund Burke wisely remarked that when people start talking about rights, it is a sure sign of a poorly conducted government. Unfortunately, the divisiveness generated by these contesting sets of values has spilled over into the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. America is now in the thick of what looks like an increasingly expanding war against Islamic fanaticism. As clearly stated by its warrior mullahs and terror chieftains, it is fundamentally a war of religious fanatics – driven by a total rejection of Western values and an inculcated hatred of Jews, Christians, and other "infidels." Although American political leaders and their party spokespersons mouth the traditional values about freedom, and justice for the 9/11 outrage, very few have actually come to grips with what we are fighting. With only stale ideas about diplomacy, sanctions, and multilateral solutions, Democrats do their best to castigate President Bush on every issue. For its own part, the administration does not seem to be aware of the necessity of forcefully describing what is at stake in this confrontation, and what will happen if the United States does not act, unilaterally if need be, to defeat these fanatics. The Middle East is a cauldron of incompatible sectarian beliefs, controlled by political and religious despotisms spurred by a supra-nationalist propaganda and dogma machine that effectively controls the ignorant masses.
When confronted with religious fanaticism, diplomacy will not work, and never has. Our primary enemies are Iran and Syria, with North Korea on the sidelines ready to sell weapons to the highest bidder. The feckless European countries are mired in corruption and self-interest and cannot be counted on to fight. Decades of domestic legal, and political squabbling on controversial issues, coupled with a decadent culture, has weakened America to the point of impotence in our ability to grapple with the situation that we all now face. With Israel's armed reaction to Hezbollah and Hamas instigation, the cauldron has already started to boil over. If the major powers continue to dither, allowing these forces of evil to fester, and Iran to develop its nuclear weapon capability, the whole region is likely to go up in flames. Wait until the first nuclear-tipped warhead explodes.
Barrett Kalellis is a Michigan-based columnist, writer and pundit for NewsMax.com, whose articles appear regularly in various local and national print and online publications.
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